Guilt and blame
by TeBlacks
Summary: After Azkaban Sirius found out he had trouble sleeping. Most nights it's managable, others it's pointless to even try. One of those nights Remus comes to check on him.


_Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or their world. I'm just borrowing them from J. K. Rowling._

**AN: **This takes place sometime before or during OotP.

The house is quiet. It's night and he should be sleeping like everyone else, but Sirius can't. Most of the time the quiet and dark doesn't bother him, but sometimes, like now, it reminds him of Azkaban too much. The thoughts can't be pushed away and all he's left to do is wait for morning to come.

His eyes trace the faint cracks in the paint in the ceiling. The house is slowly falling apart and someone should do something about it. That someone should be him, but why bother? He never wanted to return to this house and as soon as his name is cleared he'll get another place to live.

His door creek open and Remus peeks his head inside. He startles when his eyes meet Sirius's. "Oh," he says and looks as if he's searching for words, but none come. "I didn't think you'd be up," he finally says and fully enters the room.

Sirius chuckles and lift himself up on his elbows. "So why come here? Spying on me Moony?"

Remus doesn't answer where he stands by the dresser, still close to the door. "When I was at Hogwarts," he says after a while, completely out of synch with the moment." "... I got to talking with Hagrid and you know him, doesn't really think before he speaks." He starts to fiddle with something or other on the dresser. "He talked about you and our time at school and then he got to talking about Azkaban."Remus finally looks up and look at Sirius. "Did you know he was there the year before?"

"Yeah, I saw them bring him in and heard him for a couple of days before he went quiet." Sirius sits up and lean against the headboard wondering where this is going.

"Anyway, he told me how hard it was to sleep soundly when he got out because he still remembered it and how even though he'd been out for quite some time he still had trouble sleeping from time to time." Remus' eyes are firmly stuck on his hand on the dresser again. "So I just wanted to ..."

"See how I was sleeping," Sirius finishes for him.

Remus nods and moves away from the dresser, further into the room. "I can't even begin to imagine what Azkaban must have been like, even with your possibility to turn into Padfoot." He moves around the room and talks without looking at Sirius.

"No, you can't imagine. And I don't want you to. I wouldn't want you burdened with that."

The werewolf laughs humourlessly and pushes a hand through his greying hair. "I've always thought Azkaban was a too cruel punishment given the dementors. I didn't think anyone could do anything to deserve being stuck with them." He stops and turns to Sirius. "But then James and Lily... and you... I thought you deserved it. I used to think no one should be put in that hell and then I think my _friend_ could deserve it." His eyes portray how broken up Remus feels about it. "A person who's always been there for me and never left my side, even when I asked him to. I thought he could deserve it when I used to think no one could." His shoulder sag and his mouth is faced downwards. "What does that make of me?"

"Remus, come here," Sirius says and Remus hesitates before sitting down on the bed. "I don't blame you for believing it was me. I never have." He wishes Remus would look at him, but the other man's eyes are firmly placed on his hands in his lap. "I've blamed myself plenty, and Peter even more, but never you. I'm certain I would have felt the same way in your shoes." He sighs and rubs his eyes. "How could I ever blame you for believing the truth you were given that seemed to fit? I gave you reason to doubt me when we were sixteen and again when we were adults and I doubted your loyalty to us, so of course you wouldn't question the explanation that was handed to you and everyone."

"That doesn't make me feel better, Sirius," he mumbles and finally look up. "I _promised_ you that I'd forgiven you for what happened in school with Snape. I promised you that I would never hold that against you again. So the fact that it helped me convince myself you were the traitor only make me feel _worse_."

"Remus," he sighs. "So much shit was going on back then. I don't think anyone actually trusted anyone else. Except for Prongs and his ever unwavering faith." The fact that James never had wanted to believe anyone in the Order, or anyone of his friends, had wanted to see him dead still made Sirius fill with rage. "I didn't trust you, I was mad at Dumbledore and couldn't quite trust him either because of the rumours of him I'd heard from home. If I hadn't been so blind with desperation ... maybe they'd still be here." Sirius moved closer to Remus and waited until the other man's eyes met his. "The blame game won't get us anywhere. You _have_ _to_ forgive yourself."

"Have _you_ forgiven yourself?" Remus asks instead of answering.

"That's different," Sirius mumbles.

"How?"

"You didn't have the same responsibilities ... you weren't Harry's godfather, the one who was supposed to keep him safe and take care of him." He sighs very deeply. The years he will never get back with Harry, the years he can never make up for, hurts the most. For that year after Harry was born he almost spent as much time with his godson as James and Lily did and their bond was special. Harry didn't remember any of it and the memories were starting to fade for Sirius too. "You didn't fail everything and everyone."

"Maybe not," Remus says with a smile. "But I did fail my divination OWL."

"Well, who the bloody hell didn't?" Sirius laughs. "That exam was impossible." From somewhere in the house Sirius can hear a clock chime four.

"You didn't fail everything," Remus says after a couple of moments. "Somehow everything just went so very wrong and for fourteen years I've tried to see how it could happen, and I've never been able to see it. I don't know when or how we lost Peter, or if he was never really ours. I don't know when you and me went wrong. I just know it was spiralling out of control for so long."

"Do you think we'll ever be able to fix us Moony?" Sirius asks softly after a couple of moments in silence.

"Not to the way we were before," Remus finally answers. "But I think the past should be in the past. We have to find a new way to be. The last two marauders." Because, really, Peter didn't count anymore.

"Come on, Moony, let's go to bed."

As easy as it had been back in school when one of them couldn't sleep or had a nightmare Remus crawled down beside Sirius in his bed. They lay side by side on their backs looking up on the ceiling. "I sometimes wonder how everything would have turned out if Dumbledore had been their secret keeper," Sirius whispers.

"Me too," Remus whispers back before slowly drifting off to Sirius' even breaths.

**AN:** So this was it. Constructie critisism is always appreciated and so are nice comments.


End file.
